ECLAS CONFERENCE 2014 a PORTO CONFERENCE THEME - LANDSCAPE: A PLACE OF CULTIVATION Cultivation is about growing things: from greening the earth to expanding knowledge; from valuing beauty to artful innovation; from multiplying perception to enriching experiences. Everything can be cultivated, grown or developed into higher, deeper or richer levels of understanding, participation and sharing. Cultivation is about developing spatial opportunities, drawing from reality to nurture the present and ease the future. Habitable spaces sustain life and significance; they prosper with safe light, breathable air, fertile soil, drinkable water, spiritual beauty and rich biodiversity. Cultivation leads to a multitude of possibilities, allowing fertility, ingenuity and creativity to blossom. Wellness thrives on the generation of ideas, the lay of the land, the wealth of nature and the wonders of art. People apprehend and cherish the experience of cultivation, and land turns into landscape. CONFERENCE SUBTHEME i: Cultivation of ideas Why cultivating ideas on landscape matters? Landscape is a vast and attractive concept wandering about nature and culture, art and science, perception and experience, time and place, pattern and process. It is a fertile ground for the cultivation of ideas embracing innumerable approaches and disciplines that spread across a wide range of views and feelings. Landscape is an enticing motto for constructing theories, generating opinions, and promoting critique; for developing narratives, concepts and methodologies; for producing philosophies, principles and values. Be thrilled to cultivate and share your ideas on landscape theory, history, identity and character; expose your landscape ideologies, values, morals and ethics; cultivate your thoughts on the landscape of profit, speculation, congruence or beauty. Cultivating the landscape in itself is a good idea!!!... CONFERENCE SUBTHEME ii: Cultivation of land The land is the place we live in. It is our most import life support. It is home. Population increase is pushing the limits of the land to a critical point of rupture. Soil is being made less fertile; water is drying up; trees are being felled; animals and people are being made less viable. Inequity and poverty thrive while the land is put into a state of alienation. As we roam the Earth and use its resources we should know better how to cultivate it in the right ways so as to guarantee that food and sustenance can be made possible for future generations. Here lies the landscape of possibility; a biophysical territory to be cultivated with well-informed anticipation and evaluation; a transforming landscape approached by thorough impact assessment, visionary planning and sensitive management. Why must we envision a better cultivate land for the landscape of the future? CONFERENCE SUBTHEME iii: Cultivation of nature Once nature was our habitat. However, since the Industrial Revolution and the consequent urban sprawl, the pressure on natural systems has gone global and we are overriding nature from the face of the Earth. The shrinking natural habitats and fragmentation of the ecological networks, climate change, biodiversity decline, fresh water depletion, invasive species, are now common concerns in human societies. Vanishing nature has only been mitigated in special places where conservation is still achieved as a result of remoteness, human abandonment or statutory enforcement. Pre-industrial cultural landscapes, where nature and culture blend, are also retreating, only cultivated in wealthier contexts. However, we have always cultivated nature in protected woodlands, hunting grounds, common lands, nature reserves, parks and gardens. More and more landscapes have to be conceived and cultivated with nature in mind, linking spaces, structuring cities, connecting life at all scales. Naturalness feeds our imagination, grounds us to the earth and adds identity and significance to our lives. Why may cultivating nature be the clue to solve the essence of our problems? CONFERENCE SUBTHEME iv: Cultivation of art The cultivation of art powers creativity and captivates the imagination; it provokes ideals, spirituality and existence. Sometimes it still leads to the precision of skills and the pleasure of experiencing aspects with higher significance such as beauty, goodness and originality. To see and appreciate art we may only need to look at things with clear eyes and an open mind. Cultivating art can be a potent mode for innovation explored with the deepest feelings, an artifice also made possible by contemplation. The ability to organize and design outdoor spaces and to produce a new landscape may be one of the most complex actions of the cultivation of art. Designed spaces, such as parks and gardens retain the multifaceted character of places full of meaning and effect. The dynamic richness of the outdoor pattern, form and outline is crucial for the enjoyment of life, not only as a touch of transcendence but also as a repository of the plentiful diversity of a utopian landscape. Those are also the places to think further about visual assessment, landscape aesthetics, congruence, harmony, uniqueness and rupture. Why may cultivating art free us from limited views and push our proposals to pursue wider landscapes of possibility?
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 10:00:48 +0000
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